Levesque headed to World Championships

It was a busy week for Tufts sailing. The Tufts coed sailing came away with a victory at the Atlantic Coast Freshman Championship at William Hobart and Smith. And while his teammates were winning a championship, freshman Alex Kirkland managed to put together a good finish at the Single Handed Nationals at Rice University. Also taking place this weekend was the Hinman Trophy which ended with senior Pete Levesque clinching a spot for his non-collegiate team in the World Championships in New Zealand.

At Hobart, Tufts took first place overall out of 12 teams, finishing in front of Georgetown and Dartmouth by scores of 12 and 13 respectively.

In the A division, freshmen Bryan Prior, Alex Singer and Ian Beam finished in the middle of the pack at sixth with a score of 76. In the B division, freshmen Jeff Cruise and Eric Morley took first place with a score of 33, giving them a solid finish ahead of Georgetown, 42, and Dartmouth, 61. Tufts B had nine top three finishes and only one finish outside the top half of the pack.

At the Hinman Trophy in New Orleans, senior Pete Levesque and 2000 graduate Carlos Lenz's non-collegiate Silver Pandas clinched a birth at the World Championship in New Zealand. They were not the only team with ties to Tufts to clinch a world championship spot, however, as 1997 graduates Graeme Woodworth and Tim Fallon also qualified for the trip to New Zealand.

On the way to clinching the World Championship berth, the Silver Pandas had to knock off last year's semi finalists, the Longfellows, the 1999 Hinman Champions, New York, and the silver medallists at the World Championship last year, Whishbone. This was considered to be one of the biggest upsets in recent team racing history.

At the Men's Single Handed Nationals in Houston, Texas, Kirkland took fourth place out of 16 competitors, with one first place race and eight top five finishes. Georgetown freshman Alex Campbell took first place overall, with 14 top five finishes, and senior Clay Bischoff of Harvard University finishing behind him in second.

In action from last week, Tufts finished behind Harvard at the Professor Schell Trophy, held at MIT. In both divisions Tufts and Harvard separated themselves from the rest of the pack, but it was a matter of who could do better consistently in each of the 12 races per division.

In division A, seniors Pete Levesque and Caroline Hall, along with freshman Dave Siegal, took first place with a score of 49. They finished in the top five in eight of the 12 races and had five top three finishes.

In division B, seniors J.R. Maxwell and Deane Madsen took fourth with a score of 56. Tufts B had eight top five races but no first place finishes, while Harvard finished in the top five in ten of 12 races. Tufts finished with a score of 105, ten behind Harvard, which had a score of 95.

Also last week, at the Nickerson Trophy, Tufts started slowly but had a good finish. In division A, freshman Brian Prior took sixth place with a total score of 97. The A squad had four top five finishes and three bottom six finishes out of 14 total races. In division B, freshmen Eric Morley and Jeff Cruise made up some lost ground finishing with a first place score of 70.

Despite some problems caused by the weather, the team performed well especially for an all freshman squad sent to a regatta filled with many juniors and seniors.

"We did pretty well, but the weather and the wind bothered us a bit," Prior said. "The amount of wind can impact our team a lot. Just as long as the boat doesn't tip over we'll be fine, because then it's the cold water we're dealing with."

Next week the Tufts coed and women teams sail in their final regular season events in the Atlantic Coast Dinghy Championship at Coast Guard, and the women's team goes to the Atlantic Coast Women's Championship at Connecticut. If the team wants to continue its recent success, it may have to work on coping with bad weather conditions.

"We have to get better with dealing with the cold weather," Cruise said. "Every team has to deal with it, but if we want to be better than the rest of the teams out there, we'll have to adjust."